jectification: The case of the Swedish
modals
må
and
måtte
Abstract:This paper reports on a synchronic corpus investigation of the Swedish modals må ‘may, should’ and måtte ‘may, must’. These modals developed a wide variety of meanings within the modal spectrum, i.e. meanings in the realm of necessity and possibility. The development of modals is a prototypical instance of grammaticalization, also known as auxiliation. The rise of modal and postmodal meanings is a well-attested tendency in semantic change and is generally accompanied by (inter)subjectification. This paper outlines the etymology, semantic distributions and formal properties ofmå and måtte and focuses on the relation between grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification. It is shown thatmåand måtteare now highly grammaticalized and (inter)sub- jectified linguistic items.
1 Introduction
This paper is concerned with the Swedish modal auxiliaries må‘may, should’ and måtte ‘may, must’.1 These can be seen either as two variants of the same
modal, or as two distinct modals (Teleman et al. 1999). Historically, they derive from the same verb (< Old Swedishmagha‘have the power/strength’)–måbeing present tense andmåttebeing past tense–but nowadays they have significantly different semantic distributions (Section 4). In this study, they are treated as two distinct modals as they no longer express present and past tense of the same verb.
In Old Swedish (ca. 1225–1526),måandmåttewere frequently occurring lin- guistic items that expressed a wide range of meanings in the domain of necessity and possibility (e.g. Björkstam 1919; Andersson 2007; Svenska Akademiens ordbok[SAOB]), but they have now largely been replaced by the modal måste 1 There is also a lexical verb,att må‘to feel’, which has the same origin as the modalsmåand måtte(see Section 2). Nowadays,att måis a full-fledged verb with a regular paradigm:att må
‘to feel’–mår‘feel’ –mådde‘felt’ –har mått‘has felt’. Lexicalmåis excluded from this investi- gation as it has no modal or postmodal meanings.
DOI 10.1515/9783110492347-003 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
‘must’.2At present,måand måtte are highly grammaticalized forms which are
largely restricted to specific constructions and contexts (e.g. Teleman et al. 1999; Wärnsby 2006; Sections 2 and 3). As a consequence,måandmåtte have been largely neglected in synchronic studies of Swedish modals.
The development of the modals må and måtte is nonetheless interesting. They have reached the final stages of grammaticalization, and their current meanings are highly (inter)subjective, so that their development can be studied and compared in light of attested tendencies in semantic change and hypotheses on the relation between grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification.
The focus of this paper is on the interaction between grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification in the development of the modal and postmodal meanings ofmåandmåtte, and I will investigate any differences in their develop-
ment, semantic distributions and formal properties.
In assessing the degree of grammaticalization ofmåandmåtte, both formal and semantic criteria will be looked at. Indicators of formal change in gramma- ticalization are the inflectional paradigm (full or defective), syntactic position (fixed or free) and the number of specific constructions and contexts in which a form may occur (few or many). That is to say, when an item has a deficient inflectional paradigm, and it frequently occurs infixed syntactic positions and specific constructions and contexts, it shows signs of (advanced) grammaticaliza- tion. Formåandmåtte, the degree to which they have lost verbal characteristics will be essential in determining their degree of auxiliation. As to the semantics of grammaticalization, the proportion of premodal, modal and postmodal mean- ings formåas well asmåttewill be examined. In line with van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80), modal meanings are considered to involve possibility and necessity as paradigmatic variants. This definition applies to the domains of dynamic, deontic and epistemic modality. Postmodal meanings, e.g. optative or concessive meanings, are meanings that originate in either possibility or neces- sity (van der Auwera and Plungian 1998: 79). Premodal meanings are lexical source concepts (e.g. main verbs) that have the potential to give rise to modal meanings. The development of modal and postmodal meanings is a well-known instance of semantic change that follows predictable developmental paths (Bybee et al. 1994; van der Auwera and Plungian 1998; Heine and Kuteva 2002; Traugott and Dasher 2002). Relations between premodal, modal and postmodal meanings are contiguous as premodal meanings give rise to modal meanings, which in turn may develop further into postmodal meanings.
2 Måsteis a loanword from Middle Low German (ca. 1100–1600), the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It derives frommoste, which is the imperfect tense ofmoten‘to have permission/ to be obliged’(Wessén 1965: 243). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
A well-attested tendency in the development of grammatical items is that their meanings become increasingly (inter)subjective over time (e.g. Traugott 1989, 1995, 2003). With respect to (inter)subjectification, the perspective adopted here builds on Traugott (e.g. 2010). Subjectification is seen as a process of semantic change through which expressions of speaker-reference or speaker- involvement arise. Intersubjectification is taken to be a process of semantic change which gives rise to expressions of speaker–writer and addressee–reader interaction. Subjectification and intersubjectification may affect linguistic items on different linguistic layers (ideational, textual and interpersonal level; see, e.g., Halliday and Hasan 1976; Traugott 1982, Traugott 1989, Traugott 1995) and may, but need not, accompany other processes of change, such as grammaticalization. It is hypothesized that, in the course of auxiliation,måandmåttehave lost the properties typical of main verbs and that their semantic development follows the well-known path from premodal to modal meaning (and eventually to post- modal meaning). Må and måtte have then become more subjective over time as they required modal and postmodal meanings. The synchronic status, both formal and semantic, as well as the historical development of these modals will be discussed. Then their development will be analyzed with respect to character- istics of grammaticalization and subjectification to examine how the empirical data match existing theoretical claims and observed tendencies within gramma- ticalization studies.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the etymology and develop- ment ofmåandmåtteis sketched from Old Swedish up to now. The sources and methods to the synchronic corpus investigation ofmåand måtteare presented in Section 3. In Section 4, the results of the corpus investigation are discussed and illustrated with corpus examples. Grammaticalization and (inter)subjectifi- cation and their role in the development of må and måtte are elaborated on in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 contains an overall summary and concluding remarks.